554 



NEW JERSEY. 



ceptive plea of a return to specie payments. Already 

 the cost of this legislation in favor of money and 

 against manhood has been to the industry of the 

 country three times more than the whole national 

 debt, while it has checked the industrial association 

 of the people, stopped their progress toward indus- 

 trial independence, tilled the land with disheartened 

 and impoverished tramps, and so demoralized those 

 placed by the people's suffrage in temporary control 

 of the people's well-being that they dare appeal to 

 the bayonet to silence the popular discontent. An 

 industrious people need no military to force them 

 to their pursuits, while a bankrupt people means a 

 bankrupt Government. By a persistent course of 

 legislation the Republican party in power, aided by 

 the Democratic party, has made banking and bond- 

 holding so preeminently the most profitable busi- 

 ness of the country that the producers, on whom the 

 whole charge of interest comes, are disheartened and 

 desperate at finding the results of their labors taken 

 from them, and penury the only legacy they can hope 

 to leave their children. This wasteful disregard of 

 the people's rights thus inaugurated by the Central 

 Government has been imitated by the subordinate 

 State and local administrations, so that a career of 

 peculation, extravagance, and fraud has been carried 

 on until the people, crushed under taxation and de- 

 prived of income, are in danger of becoming reckless 

 and violent. Hunger knows no law and order. To 

 put an end to the wholesale robbery of the people, 

 the Independent Greenback party invites all well- 

 meaning persons to carefully consider these resolu- 

 tions, which were adopted in convention. 



The colored men of the State, pursuant to a 

 call issued in the month of July, held a con- 

 vention at Princeton on the 22d of August, to 

 publicly express their sentiments on matters 

 which especially concern their political and so- 

 cial condition. Several persons of good repute 

 and influence among them addressed the as- 

 sembly. 



Upon the call of the president, the Com- 

 mittee on Resolutions reported the following : 



That we renew our fidelity to the principles of the 

 National Republican party, recognizing in them the 

 source and medium of our liberty, enfranchisement, 

 and equality of citizenship. 



That we indorse the movement recently inaugu- 

 rated for the elevation of labor, and will give our aid 

 and comfort in the support of all peaceable and law- 

 ful measures that will emancipate the workingmeu 

 from the arbitrary tyranny of capital. 



That we indorse the civil service reform as ap- 

 proved by the present Administration, which, if 

 successfully prosecuted, will purify parties, and give 

 strength and confidence to the Government. 



That the conciliatory policy of President Hayes is 

 an abandonment of the Republican party by which 

 he was elected to the Presidency, and is and ought 

 to be condemned, in that it has given and will con- 

 tinue to give political power and the control of the 

 Government to the very men who sought its de- 

 struction. 



That we tender our support to the tried friends of 

 liberty in our own State and elsewhere. 



These resolutions were taken up by sections 

 for discussion. The first, third, and fifth reso- 

 lutions were adopted ; the second and fourth, 

 tabled. 



A number of tax-payers in the State assem- 

 bled in convention at Trenton on September 

 3d, their object being " to consult on the course 

 best to be taken to relieve the tax-payers of 

 the State from the burden they have so long 



and so patiently submitted to." Claiming that 

 " the tax-reform is not a political but a busi- 

 ness one," they intended to nominate their 

 own candidate for Governor, should the con- 

 vention, on deliberation, have thought fit to 

 pursue that course. 



The attendance at this convention, which at 

 first numbered less than twenty persons, on its 

 reassembling after a recess tilled the room. 

 Upon the report of the Committee on Organi- 

 zation, the temporary officers of the convention 

 were made permanent. 



The following Declaration of Principles was 

 reported from the Committee on Resolutions, 

 and adopted by the convention : 



All true reform no matter by what name called 

 or known, or by whom advocated has a common 

 object in view, namely, relief from burdens unneces- 

 sarily borne and the bettering of the condition of 

 man. That the tax-payers of New Jersey are now 

 suffering from burdens is evidenced in the fact that, 

 while the pay of office-holders and all other expen- 

 ditures from State, county, township, city, and 

 school treasuries have increased from 200 to 800 per 

 cent, within the past few years ; while new offices 

 have been created, and a large number of clerks and 

 other employe's have been pensioned upon public 

 treasuries ; while, in a word, taxes have been largely 

 increased, the public service has been but little ben- 

 efited ; the resources from which to pay these in- 

 creased taxes have been greatly lessened by the de- 

 crease of income received from labor, from the cuU 

 tivating of farms, from all kinds of mechanical- pur- 

 suits, from manufacturing, from merchandise, from 

 professional avocations, from, indeed, all resources 

 from which or through which all tax-payers (save 

 office-holders) usually derive the means with which 

 to pay taxes, and, worse still, the disproportion be- 

 tween the amount demanded and the ability to 

 pay is growing greater. In view of these incontro- 

 vertible facts, the tax-payers of New Jersey, irre- 

 spective of party politics, and without any intention 

 or desire to injure or to help either of the great po- 

 litical parties (both having failed heretofore to give 

 any relief, and both being so constituted, controlled, 

 and led, that they cannot, or will not, give the 

 needed relief), respectfully but most earnestly de- 

 mand the following reforms : 



1. That in all public business the rule which a 

 prudent man would adopt as his own should be 

 adopted for the public business. 



2. That in making appropriations from public 

 treasuries, the interests of the entire community, or 

 of the entire State, shall alone be considered, and 

 not the interests of a few office-holders, office-seek- 

 ers, or would-be contractors. 



3. That the rate of interest in New Jersey shall be 

 reduced from 7 to 6 per cent. 



4. That the assessment for taxes shall be equi- 

 table and just, and uniform in all parts of the Stnte. 



5. That all superfluous offices shall be abolished, 

 all superfluous pensioners be discharged, and the 

 salaries and fees of all office-holders reduced to cor- 

 respond with present vwlues and present incomes 

 from other pursuits. 



6. That all perquisites to office-holders be abol- 

 ished, and that fixed salaries be substituted for fees, 

 except in court cases, when the fees shall be reduced 

 one-naif. 



7. That the office of County School Superintendent 

 be abolished ; the salary of the State Superintendent 

 reduced; the pay for teachers' institutes be discon- 

 tinued. 



8. That disbursements from the State Treasury for 

 State militia shall not hereafter exceed $10,000 per 

 annum. 



